The 19th Century Schoolbooks Collection contains schoolbooks from the Nietz Old Textbook Collection. In addition, this online collection also contains two works by Dr. John Nietz, which survey historic American schoolbooks in the context of the history of education.

What's in the entire collection?

Dr. John Nietz spent much of his career at the University of Pittsburgh teaching in the School of Education. When he retired in 1958, he founded the Nietz Old Textbook Collection by donating his 9,000 volume library of early primary and secondary school texts. He had acquired the texts to demonstrate the history of teaching in the early years of the United States. During his career, Dr. Nietz directed or advised over 30 dissertations and master's theses based upon the collection. Dr. Nietz died in 1970.
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Since its establishment, the collection has grown to over 16,000 volumes through gifts and purchases.

About John A. Nietz

The founder of the Nietz Old Textbook Collection, the late Professor Emeritus John A. Nietz, was born near Toledo, Ohio in 1888. He earned an A.B. degree at Ohio Northern University in 1914, his M.A. at Ohio State University in 1919, and a Ph.D. in Education at the University of Chicago in 1933. During his stay at the University of Chicago, Nietz studied under the famous philosopher and educational theorist, John Dewey.